


Your average, every day kind of magic

by hala_macaron



Series: My heart belongs to words and is stained with ink [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, and then it turned creepy, this was supposed to be fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hala_macaron/pseuds/hala_macaron
Summary: Ellanher finds humans to be endlessly fascinating.
Series: My heart belongs to words and is stained with ink [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755703





	Your average, every day kind of magic

Ellanher finds humans to be endlessly fascinating. Not in the way dragons or faeries or fluffy pastries are fascinating. Mind you – and this is good natured advice – dragons are fascinating but better admired from afar if you are not invited in by them.

If you are, however, feel free to ask any question that comes to mind. Dragons give great advice. And most satyrs will behave like absolute dicks if given the chance, so for your own sake, do not give them one. Ellanher might not have learned much during his travels through the Sapphire Meadows but he has learned that much. 

Now he’s getting off topic though.

Humans do not possess magic like his kind does, his teachers used to tell him that every other hour, especially when he tried to get away with casting illusions of himself instead of attending his lessons himself. Actually that’s a lie. His teachers used to tell him – with too many dramatics and colourful smoke effects than necessary – that humans possessed no magic at all. They had lost it somewhere in world history and have become creatures to be pitied for their lacking.He always thought that was ridiculous, no one could simply lose their magic. And even if they did, wouldn’t they go looking for it?

Ellanher has spent the last 500 years watching humans and he disagrees with his old teachers. Humans still possess magic, albeit it’s not at all similar to that of his kind. That is not to say it isn’t powerful in its own right. He thinks, always has thought that, really, that you don’t need to be able to conjure flames or rearrange the stars to be powerful. But his teachers are so caught up in their own childish arrogance of being able to do exactly that to see reason. 

Ellanher giggles. He thinks it’s ridiculous that people looked up to because of their so called wisdom are this blind.

The magic of humans is seldom one of pure force and iron will needed to make mountains do your bidding. And despite what so many beings think it is not lost. Far from it, actually. It is merely subtle and quite simple magic and it is there.

It’s the way dancers hold themselves with grace and elegance, their bodies mending after particular painful impacts or accidents. They never realise they had them, their body knows what it has to do, and so does their magic. They thrum with the energy the cheers of their audience bring, floating on the bated breaths and excited heartbeats. One dancer (the world thinks him incredibly fast and he probably does as well) briefly loses his body whenever he’s dancing. Ellanher has watched him dance multiple times, and he bursts into gusts of wind, twirling around stages and other dancers in a gleeful manner. Barely anyone notices. Very few haven’t lost their sight. Meeting them is always a delightful experience.

It’s the way no beverage ever tastes the same when someone else makes it even if the recipe hasn’t been meddled with. He fondly remembers a professor who was terribly addicted to instant coffee. Try as he might, Ellanher has never managed to make the disgusting swill drinkable. His friend though, she did. She was able to transport you to different places, make you remember things you had no memory of and made you feel like weeping for different reasons every time she gave you something to drink. Her instant coffee transported you to a hut built of stone and wood in the middle of winter, made you sit in front of a merry fireplace, decked in furs and blankets to ward of the cold. It was a cup of liquid comfort in your hands, warming you and dusting your insides with the faintest longing for cinnamon and roasted marshmallows on caramel biscuits.

It’s the way artists are surrounded by colours. To someone with Ellanher’s knowledge they look alien. They have no true form, no real body to cling to. Some are a strange bouquet of colours and shapes, like some sort of abstract art. He snickers at that, it’s a little bit ironic after all. Others change like the tides, neither solid nor a blob of ever wiggling fluid like others. It’s interesting to watch them pour themselves into something and gain another piece of themselves in the process. One giant puzzle without any sense to it.

It’s words, and the ways they have learned to make them their own, to use them. They pour their essence into them, make them take on forms either intentionally or without meaning to. Feelings and colours, shapes and meanings. Blurring together and yet so distinct. Sometimes they let them be carried by air, and sometimes they add music to them. Others write them down, giving them inky clothes and a backpack full of meaning, sending them off into the world and watching over them from afar. Sometimes the words aren’t words at all, but movements. Ellanher would love to learn all of the ways humans have made language their own, but he is afraid he does not have the patience.

Their magic is everywhere and nowhere at once. It is theirs, and it shows in everything they do. When you have a home everywhere he supposes you also have a home nowhere. It’s everything they do, because they do it. He wonders whether he’ll ever be able to discover every single shade and form of magic they bring into this world. He highly doubts it. Well the rational part of him does, anyways. The enthusiastic part of him is vibrating in its seat, hooking sharp little claws into his shoulder and whisper shouting at him to step forward. It wants to see and to experience and to touch. Most of all it wants to taste.

A smile that could cut glass slowly spreads over his face. He refrains from opening his eyes. The two beneath his eyebrows are enough. He doesn’t want to frighten the humans. Ellanher has grown fond of them and silently vowed to observe and protect from a distance. He is a wanted man but wouldn’t dream of endangering his wayward children, so unaware of their power and yet so beautifully, so ridiculously strong. He loves them.

The tea tastes sweet, of apples and nutmeg and a little bit of starlight. He likes it and refrains from looking up. This café is too crowded to attempt and get a glimpse of the little barista’s magic, their essence. 

He catches a glimpse of a student, however. That one went to the same school as he did, he knows the disgusting stench all too well. They don’t seem to have spotted him and he hums into his tea, content. He would hate for them to make a scene.

His old teachers did, when they confronted him in the library of the school. How unbecoming of men of their status. Yet it had filled Ellanher with cruel glee, freezing to the touch. A stark contrast to the hot blood of the slowly cooling corpse beneath him, staining his teeth and clothes. The librarian had been an old hag, wise and schooled in weather magic. Her anger had tasted like waves crashing against rock, unforgiving and screaming at him to yield. He has tasted that anger time and time again, used it when some of the wee court sorcerers had come along to arrest him. Idiots. His teachers at least had had the brains to run when they realised what he was.

The old hag’s magic, part of his magic now, has been proving itself useful, just like all the others he’s sucked dry, eaten and made his own. His children will never need to fret. He can protect them from any being that steps out of line.

He leaves the café, leaving behind another tip for his server to find. It’s a birthday present for her. He grins, humming a nursery song he has long ago forgotten the words to. She has wished for jewels for so long, every time her life came around. It’s the same wish over and over, and he had haggled with the satyrs of the Sapphire Meadows for a long time. When they had wanted to trick him, he ate one of them in front of all the others. They did as he bid after that. Creatures like them are not popular for their customer service. As he said, they will be dicks if given the chance. He simply didn’t give them the chance back then.   


Plus, he now knows how to play any string instrument really well.


End file.
